Multiculturalism Realized

This past weekend, I returned to DC to visit Richard and attend Mar's wedding- Mar is also a third-year general surgery resident. There are only four in his class at Walter Reed, so he has gotten fairly close to the other three. Mar and Eric's wedding was at St. Matthew's Cathedral, where JFK and Chief Justice William Rehnquist's funerals were held (Rehnquist's was quite controversial, as it was a Protestant ceremony), and where mass is celebrated each year before the start of the Supreme Court term to request guidance from the Holy Spirit for the legal profession. It was absolutely beautiful, and the wedding ceremony incorporated elements of Mar's Filipino background, such as a cord ceremony and veil ceremony.

St. Matthew's Cathedral

The ceremony was followed by a cocktail hour and reception at the Mayflower hotel, and during the cocktail hour, Richard and I's friends and recently engaged couple Shankar and Merica shared the details of their upcoming wedding, which will be reflective of their Hindu beliefs and culture. In that brief amount of time, Richard and I learned about the differences between Indian sub-sects and Nepali traditions, and the ceremonies that Shankar and Merica will participate in prior to their wedding. And then at the reception, I was seated next to a gentleman from Romania who organizes Romanian happy hours in DC with a email list of 1200. He shared the Romanian tradition of "stealing" the bride with us. Apparently this was taken a bit too far at a wedding where the bride was Romanian and the groom was not- the groom began to legitimately fear that the bride was kidnapped! As I listened him talk about Romanians at his parties rocking out to techno music, I realized how much my horizons had been broadened through all of our new friends in DC.

3 of 4 Walter Reed General Surgery Third-Years

When Richard was considering residency programs, I was all about having him in Augusta at Eisenhower. Augusta is only an hour away from Columbia- even closer than Charleston!-and Richard could still go to Clemson games and South Carolina weddings. God had other plans though, and Richard could not refuse a spot at Walter Reed. While maintaining a long-distance relationship is often extremely difficult, we have been blessed beyond belief with new friends that come from a completely different background than we have. And as we learn from them, I hope they will take a little bit from us too. We certainly had a time showing them the shag!

After the wedding, Richard and I went to see Paul McCartney at Fed Ex Field, where the Redskins play. I was initially opposed to this, as I shamefully enough do not know a ton of his music nor the Beatles. But for a man that is 67 years young, Sir Paul did put on a show. It lagged at points (or maybe that was just when I didn't know what he was playing), but seeing him play "Live and Let Die," "Let It Be," "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," and "Yesterday" was worth the price of admission. Traffic was awful afterwards, so Richard and I bought Krispy Kreme doughnuts and bottled water from a basketball team selling them as a fundraiser (who were hopefully legit) and ate the doughnuts sitting on the Jeep tailgate. Bliss. :)

Live and Let Die set